Factory farms the only way to ‘feed the world’? Not so, argues Science paper

[marmar]

from Grist:




Factory farms the only way to ‘feed the world’? Not so, argues Science paper

by Tom Philpott
11 May 2011 7:21 PM


To "feed the world" by 2050, we'll need a massive, global ramp-up of industrial-scale, corporate-led agriculture. At least that's the conventional wisdom.

Even progressive journalists trumpet the idea. The public-radio show Marketplace reported it as fact last week, earning a knuckle rap from Tom Laskway. At least one major strain of President Obama's (rather inconsistent) agricultural policy is predicated on it. And surely most agricultural scientists and development specialists toe that line ... right?

Well, not really. Back in 2009, Seed Magazine organized a forum predicated on the idea that a "scientific consensus," analogous to the one on climate change, had formed around the desirability of patent-protected genetically modified seeds. If I must say so, my own contribution to that discussion shredded that notion. If anything, a pro-GMO consensus has formed among a narrow group of microbiologists -- the people who conduct gene manipulations to develop novel crops. But no such accord exists among scientists whose work takes them out of the laboratory and into farm fields and ecosystems: soil experts, ecologists, development specialists, etc.

The latest evidence against any consensus around Big Ag as world savior: In a paper (PDF) just published in Science, a team of researchers led by the eminent Washington State University soil scientist John P. Reganold urges a fundamental rethinking of the U.S. ag-research system, which is "narrowly focused on productivity and efficiency" at the expense of public health and ecological resilience; and of the Farm Bill, which uses subsidies not to support a broad range of farmers but rather to "mask market, social, and environmental factors associated with conventional production systems." ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.grist.org/sustainable-farming/2011-05-11-factory-farms-only-way-to-feed-the-world-no-says-science-paper

[Scuba]

1. Farming is one of the most complicated and least understood components of sustaining life. n/t

[Coyote_Bandit]

2. Ummmm......

I grew up on a farm. Every previous generation on both sides of my family (for the last two hundred years or so) earned their livlihood on the farm. Before his death, so did my brother.

Those family farms simply cannot compete with corporate agriculture. They don't get volume discounts. They often don't benefit from government subsidy programs. They don't get the premiums paid to large producers. But they can be very productive and can produce higher quality agricultural products.

Unfortunately, the costs are such that most who aspire to work and produce agricultural products simply lack the financial resources to do so. In order to earn a livlihood in agriculture a farmer is going to need a good size chunk of land. Land is not cheap even in rural America. Neither is farm equipment. And the compensation sucks. A farmer can let his land lie fallow, service the debt on it, and have higher earnings working a factory job than farming. A farmer can have higher earnings by using his land for an ATV park. And a small farmer can win the frickin lottery if he can sell his land for a landfill.

Most consumers are either unable or unwilling to bear the higher costs necessary to support small farmers. That's unfortunate. But the deck is stacked in favor of corporate agriculture - and there is no indication that is going to change.

[GliderGuider]

4. My mother grew up on a prairie farm during the Depression, then farmed 250 acres herself in Ontario

Someone once asked her what she'd do if she won a lottery. Her reply was, "Oh, that's easy. I'd just farm till it was all gone."

[BanzaiBonnie]

3. Factory farming has the capability to destroy

our ability to feed the world.

True wealth comes from two sources, the sun and soil. Real farmers know this.

[GliderGuider]

5. Big Ag's "productivity and efficiency" is predicated on:

• Drawing down non-renewable resources including fossil fuels, soil fertility and fresh water;
  
• Socializing the costs that include pollution of land and water, growing chemical resistance in weeds and drug resistance in flesh crops;
  
• Modifying the world's genomes through outright engineering and reducing the number of genetic lines of farmed organisms;
  
• Reducing the human inputs to farming in favour of energy-intensive machinery, with the resulting loss of the knowledge base;
  
• Raising the barriers to competition from small farmers in order to concentrate profits for the agricultural power elite; and
  
• Eliminating the possibility of co-existent habitat for non-agricultural species, thereby altering ecosystems and raising the global extinction rate.

So who thought this was a good idea in the first place?

[bhikkhu]

6. Small farms are almost always more productive

the productivity of large farms is one big misconception

http://www.keepmainefree.org/myth3.html

there's a great deal more information online. The problem with less mechanized farming is that its more expensive - human labor versus machine labor - and that, realistically, most people would rather live in cities and have everything they need delivered to them.

[GliderGuider]

9. Productivity per acre and productivity per worker are very different measures.

Big Ag is oriented at maximizing the latter, since oil is cheaper than people (at the moment).

[bananas]

7. Rodale data show organic just as productive, better at building soil

Another study a few weeks ago: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x283704

[bananas]

8. In India, Bucking The 'Revolution' By Going Organic

From last year: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x197694